Loving A Lie
by icyfire
Summary: During a late night visit, her past and present with Jack meet. How will it change her future?
1. Chapter One

Title: Loving A Lie  
  
Author: Robin (icyfire)  
  
Email: icyfire@webtv.net  
  
Feedback: Please! I adore constructive criticism. :) Honest. But gushing praise is nice, too. Or a "I kind of liked it." I'm not picky.  
  
Distribution: Outside of CD, please ask.  
  
Disclaimer: While I wish I could call them mine, they aren't. I don't make any money off of them, either. A robot owns them. A bad robot. Oh, and the beginning of the alphabet--ABC.  
  
Summary: During a late night visit, her past and present with Jack meet. How will it change her future?  
  
Rating: PG-13 because of one (minor) bad word but mostly because it deals with adult issues. And some described violence.  
  
Classification: Angst, Vignette  
  
A/N: Set post-Q&A. This is set in the same universe as "A Consistent Love". You don't have to read that story to understand this one. You only have to know that Sydney's revelation at the end of Q&A was not a surprise to Jack.  
  
This was written in response to the March challenge at Credit Dauphine. I'd never done anything like that and thought it might be fun. Then, I saw the vase . . ..  
  
***  
  
The ringing of the telephone drags me out of an incredible dream. I groan as the horrible noise echoes again. The glaring red numbers of my alarm clock tells me it is 2:52 in the morning. The phone demands again to be answered, and I give in, knowing it is a wrong number, but fearing that it is not.  
  
"'ello?"  
  
"I'll be there in five minutes," the voice on the other end tells me. He hangs up before I can respond.  
  
I am now wide-awake. He's coming to visit me. I grin and hop out of the bed as if I've had enough sleep. I wonder why he's coming for a visit. I think Sydney's all right. His words were clipped, but he sounded more angry than upset or worried.  
  
My hair refuses to respond as I brush it. Sighing, I toss the brush down. Jack will have to see me with flat hair on one side and softly curling hair on the other. The only time my hair ever has a hint of curl in it is in the morning, when I first get out of bed. Jack knows that; we laughed together about it the day after I cut my hair. The shorter length had allowed it to curl for the first time in my life.  
  
An old memory surfaces. I shudder as I again hear her screams; feel her pull at my hair. Her death had been the hardest. Usually most of them never had the time to even know they were going to die. I left her body and went directly to the hair salon. Like I could cut away the memory of her agony. I told Jack I'd done it because my little girl took up too much time, that I needed an easier style.  
  
The cold water I toss on my face helps me push away memories of Janet's death. She had been a nice woman. When I first got home with Sydney, she'd dropped by with a week's worth of dinners already prepared. Her words of wisdom about taking it easy, accepting that I could not do it all by myself helped, helped keep me sane those first few weeks following Sydney's birth.  
  
After brushing my teeth, I grab my robe and head downstairs. Jack doesn't usually visit late at night, but sometimes it's easier for him to get away when everyone else is in bed. I haven't seen him since he told me that Sydney knew about my KGB past, that he'd confessed my involvement in assassinating CIA agents over twenty years ago. That he had let her know that her birth was a part of my assignment.  
  
He hasn't been here since then. Since I'd given in to an impulse and kissed him. I expect that this visit will be painful; Jack will make sure that he has even more control, that he is colder, than usual. He'll keep me as far away from him as he can. I know it, even if I have a hard time accepting it.  
  
As I get to the bottom of the steps, Jack knocks at the door. I smile as I open it. I notice that it is raining. It's a fine mist, but it's clinging to Jack's overcoat. I start to say hello but the anger in Jack's eyes stops me. "Jack?"  
  
He storms into the foyer and then turns to stare at me with eyes disguised as daggers. "What do you know about Milo Rambaldi?"  
  
I shut the door and struggle to recall why the name seems familiar. A former agent? No, I remember. A little. "He lived in the fourteenth-- fifteenth?--century. Worked for a pope. Jack, I honestly don't remember for whom he worked or what kind of work he did, but I think he was some kind of scientist, like Leonardo da Vinci." I smile. "All I can tell you for sure is that he didn't write any literature."  
  
Jack's lips thin. He woke me up to see what I know about a man who died centuries ago, and he's upset that I don't know more? Even as I feel my own frustration rise, I admit that I'm thrilled he's here. That he's angry. He's alive. The Jack statue has become a living, breathing person again. How long will it last?  
  
"Have you ever thought about destroying the US government?"  
  
My eyebrows lift at the tone. It's been years since I've been interrogated. My lips twitch as I answer. "Well, yes, actually I have."  
  
His jaw becomes even more taut, if that's possible. "I am serious."  
  
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. "Well, so am I," I answer him with a raised voice. I cross my arms. "Jack, I'm a former KGB agent. You know that we often thought of ways to bring down the US government. Hell, we didn't only think about it, we actually took action!"  
  
"Such as killing American agents," Jack snaps.  
  
I look down, and I'm surprised to find that there is no blood on my robe. The wound from his words is deep this time. "Yes, Jack," I say instead of screaming. The pain is intense. "I killed CIA agents."  
  
Jack's eyes close, as if he's hearing words he doesn't want to hear, doesn't want to face, but he's known that secret for twenty years. Not that we've ever discussed it. I made my confession on that icy road and that is the only time we talked about it. The only time.  
  
"Have you thought about taking down the US government recently?" he asks. The words are flat, unemotional. Jack the statue can sometimes make Joe Friday from Dragnet seem like an emotional basket case.  
  
I laugh. "Recently? No, I can't say that I have. I don't really pay much attention to politics anymore. Jack, what's going on here?"  
  
He stares at me. Studies me. I shift uncomfortably on my feet and then get angry with myself for showing any nervousness. This is my home, and I've done nothing wrong. Not in twenty years. Jack can be angry with someone else.  
  
Shaking his head, he reaches in his coat pocket and draws out a folded piece of paper. He hands it to me without saying a word. I open it, notice that there is more than one page, and then look at him when I see the red "Confidential" stamped across it. "Jack, this is--"  
  
"Read it."  
  
I hesitate and then begin to read. The words make no sense to me, and I'm not sure why Jack thinks I need to know what a long-dead man wrote. From the words in the document, it seems as if the US government and others are actually looking at this Milo Rambaldi as an honest-to-goodness prophet. I don't laugh, but I want to. Ah, what a government will waste money on.  
  
They are taking the last passage they've translated as a threat. "This woman here depicted--" There is only words on the page I'm looking at, but I wonder what she looked like. Another Mona Lisa hiding her secrets behind a smile? "--will possess unseen marks." Unseen marks? Nice and vague. But then prophets never speak plainly; it's the only way they can remain prophets. "Signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works, bind them with fury, a burning anger. Unless prevented at vulgar cost, this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation."  
  
I now see why the US intelligence community is taking this seriously. They always arrogantly assume they work for the greatest power, and they all are feeling vulnerable right now. Life for them became shaky last year. Feeling insecure makes people believe in fears they would laugh away normally.  
  
I finish reading the first page, and I lose some of my arrogance as I read specific scientific data that Rambaldi lists as the unseen marks. Heart size? And is that DNA? A cold draft swirls around my feet, but I ignore it. I don't bother reading the second page.  
  
I lift my shoulders and hold the papers loosely in my hand. "What does this have to do with me?"  
  
Again, he examines me, and the coldness rises around me. The dread begins in the pit of my stomach. What is this? Does Jack think I'm the woman mentioned? Does the CIA? Am I going to be dragged back in? Back in to an endless cycle of questions and accusations? I am not sure I could survive it. Not again.  
  
"Look at the second page," he says. Almost kindly. Almost as if he understands my fears.  
  
More words are at the top, but a drawing is at the bottom. The drawing. I gasp when I see Sydney staring back at me. Then, I realize that it's not her. It's--  
  
"You. That's a picture of you. I thought it was Sydney at first, too. But it is you." Jack steps closer to me. I step away. Please, don't hurt me, Jack. Please don't say that I'm being taken back in, not by you. Send strangers to arrest me, but not you. Not again.  
  
He reaches for my hair instead of my wrists. The strands run through his fingers. He looks at my hair instead of me, and I want to know what he's thinking. I'm too afraid to ask.  
  
"It's been a long time since you have had long hair." His fingers close into a fist. I feel a gentle tug on my scalp but he's not pulling. He would never hurt me. Not physically.  
  
His eyes meet mine, and I know he's going to ask a question I don't want to answer. "Why did you cut it?"  
  
I try to look down, but he doesn't let me. He pulls back on my hair, gently but firmly enough to keep me looking at him. Water blurs my vision, but I refuse to let the tears fall. I won't cry about it anymore; I've cried too much. The past is gone.  
  
Then I hear her screams again. I see the look of horror and disbelief on her face as the knife slides in between her ribs. I feel her hand relax in my hair as her breathing stops. I close my eyes and try to drive the horrible images away. They never leave me.  
  
I open my eyes and look into Jack's. "Haven't you ever wanted to cut one of them out of your mind?"  
  
Jack jerks away as if I had slapped him. In a way I have. I've reminded him that we both are killers. He married me thinking that we shared the same goals, dreams, sense of humor and values. He didn't know that I understood the demands of his job, that I had my own job to do.  
  
He didn't know that I shared his nightmares. He didn't know that I understand that they come back to haunt you in the middle of the night. He didn't know I knew that the dead never let you sleep easy.  
  
"I hate you."  
  
I don't cry out at his soft words. I don't respond at all. I can't. They hurt too much, even though I know he's speaking the truth. When I can breath again, I tell him, "You don't even know me."  
  
"No, I don't." He turns away. The clicking of a clock fills the silence between us. He walks closer to a curio cabinet I have in the corner. He begins to study an item that I have in the center of it.  
  
I tighten the belt on my robe. Crossing my arms, I allow myself a small shudder. Briefly, I wish that I could call up the cool detachment of my KGB self. Shame spreads through me at the thought.  
  
"Devlin told me that you had demanded these and pictures," he says, nodding his head towards the center of my cabinet.  
  
I try to concentrate, try to focus on what he is saying. I see the faces smiling at me. The vase. I had demanded it be brought from my life as Laura Bristow. "Yes, I wanted the vase, the beads, and pictures."  
  
He looks over his shoulder. "Why?"  
  
I know he's not asking about our family photos. "At the time, I thought it was because they reminded me of New Orleans." New Orleans. Music and laughter. Dancing in the streets. Following an impromptu parade. Making love to Jack for the first time.  
  
I still remember his apology, his horror at his loss of control. "You deserved a soft bed and romance. Not the bench seat of a pickup truck," he had said. The sounds of the swamp had surrounded them. The warm, wet heat had covered their bodies.  
  
Laura had only laughed. "Jack, you don't have to apologize. I was with you all the way. I could have said no. I didn't want to. I loved watching you lose that control of yours."  
  
He had actually blushed. Not bright red. Not Jack. But Laura had seen the hint of red in his cheeks. "I wanted it to be special."  
  
"It was," Laura had said, wrapping her arms even tighter around him. She had kissed his neck. "I was afraid that you might not want me. I mean inviting a girl to see New Orleans with you, and then getting separate hotel rooms screams 'I see you as a friend'." He had been the perfect gentleman until that night. Who would have thought he would lose control of his desire while watching the stars from an old two-toned truck borrowed from a friend?  
  
"I didn't want you to feel pressured or rushed."  
  
"You didn't rush me, Jack." She kissed him on the mouth. Lightly. "I love you." She had thought it was a lie. I had thought it was a lie. Years had to pass before I knew that I had spoken the truth that night. That Laura had been in control, and the KGB agent who thought herself in command had been ousted for the entire trip.  
  
The Jack who hates me touches the glass separating him from the vase. "New Orleans."  
  
"Yes," I whisper. I take a step towards him. The papers under my feet stop me. I look down at them, surprised to see them. I didn't realize that I had even dropped them. I reach down to pick them up.  
  
"Why did you really keep them?" he asks, almost casually. 


	2. Chapter Two

I walk towards the curio cabinet like I'm sleepwalking. I don't want to discuss this. Not tonight. I've already been bloodied too much tonight. But he's asking questions, wanting to know something about me, and I can't deny him.  
  
"Look at them, Jack. What do you see?"  
  
He hesitates before answering. "I see an ugly vase and an ugly strand of beads." He looks at me. "They lack Laura's elegance and taste." I'm too emotionally drained to even react to him saying the name. Her name. My name once. Sometimes I used to think that he had forgotten it, driven it from his mind.  
  
I lay my head on his shoulder, and he doesn't pull away. "The vase was covered in dust."  
  
"On the bottom shelf, way in the back," he says. I smile because he remembers.  
  
"I knew I wanted it the second I saw it, but I didn't know why." Jack looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him to buy it for me, but he'd been too much in love to deny me. "After you left this house that first time, I knew why. We hadn't seen each other in five years, and ,to put it nicely, our meeting was icy, but I felt like dancing after you left. I had seen you again, talked to you. I closed the door, and saw these faces looking at me, and I knew that I wanted them not because of New Orleans, but because they reflected me."  
  
I stare at the joyful face staring back at me. "When I think of New Orleans, I think of all those painted faces. Walls and walls of souvenir shops covered in painted ceramic faces. I always think of them as jester faces. Court jesters decorated up to entertain."  
  
Jack nods. "Put those are colorful, festive. These are black and white."  
  
"So was my life." I wince when I think of my younger self's stupidity. I missed so much, lost too much, because of my blindness. "But I was happy anyway. The faces smile even though their world is black and white. They are curved away from the vase. They can't see it supporting them. They don't see the rich color it adds."  
  
I sigh. "Hell, they don't even see the black and white diamonds painted at the bottom. They are blind to everything about it, even though it helps them to be happy. Because of the support of the vase, they can stand tall, feel free." My love for Jack and Sydney helped me to see parts of life I had never understood before. Could have never understood without their love. With them, the restraints of my early life had faded away.  
  
Jack actually puts his arm around my shoulder. Safe. I'm safe. A sense of security has escaped me for twenty years, but his arms bring it back to me within seconds. "You never would put flowers in it."  
  
"No," I say, not telling him that I always felt flowers would be wasted in something so ugly. That would be admitting more than I can handle tonight.  
  
His fingers trail across my shoulder. "So why did you buy the beads?"  
  
I pull away from him and open the door. Jack takes a step back so I can reach in and pull out the small string. The beads had been lying across one of the smiling faces of the vase for twenty years. I smile down at the glass wrapped between my fingers. Mostly dark beads mixed in with clear. Contrasts. My life is about contrasts. Good and evil. Taking and giving. Loving and hating.  
  
An old almost forgotten memory makes me smile. "You told me I had to buy my own. I couldn't earn them. What was yours was for your eyes only."  
  
Jack takes my hand and the beads into his hand. "I wouldn't share you." His thumb circles my knuckle. "I didn't know then that I was sharing you with them."  
  
"I know I could have bought some of those gaudy and huge beads. I mean they even sell those in black and white." I pull my hand away from Jack's, and put the choker around my neck. "But they were all long, free."  
  
I pull the choker away from my throat and again look down at it. "Back then, I had a mostly dark strand in my life choking me."  
  
Jack looks at me, the question in his eyes. I can almost hate him for not knowing, for not understanding. "The KGB," I tell him as I put the strand back on the laughing face. I close the door. "One ugly strand in a perfect life succeeded in choking out all the rest."  
  
I look at him, and I don't bother hiding the tears. I'm too tired to hide the tears, the pain, from him. "I wanted to watch Sydney grow up. I wanted to be the one to help her with her homework, to be the one that she talked to about dating. I wanted to be the one you came home to every night. I wanted to be able to hold you after you stumbled in to bed after a long, hard day. I wanted to be the one who looked at you every morning and let you know that you were a good man who had to a bad job to do."  
  
Jack puts his hands in his pockets and looks down at his shoes. "You chose your life."  
  
"No, I didn't," I say before I think. I sigh, knowing I can't get him to understand that I'm not her. I'm not the woman who agreed to work for her country, who agreed to kill the enemy. "You don't understand," I whisper helplessly.  
  
I'm too busy staring at my own feet, lost in my own pain, to hear Jack's approach. His hands caress my face, lifting it. His thumbs wipe away the tears that are falling. "Actually, I do. I understand that you are not her anymore, but I hate the KGB agent who murdered my colleagues. But I hate myself more for still loving Laura. For loving a lie."  
  
"I am Laura," I tell him. I don't believe it, but I can say the words.  
  
He shakes his head, and again his thumb wipes away a tear. "No, you're not. You're her ghost. You killed her."  
  
I can find no words to answer him; I know he's speaking the truth. I am her ghost, but I am also her.  
  
"She's still here."  
  
"I can't forget the part of you that's not her." Jack pulls away from me and walks away.  
  
We both need to pull back, to gather ourselves. The tears dry on my face as I look down at the sketch in my hand. "Why did you come here tonight, Jack? We could have had this conversation in the morning." Then, we would have acted like the polite strangers we are not. The daylight would have kept these emotions in check. The pattern would not have been broken.  
  
He looks back at me, and I stunned when I see that the cold marble face is not back in place. "They thought it was her."  
  
"They took her in." I shudder at the thought. Did they chain her to the chair, too? Did they try to twist her words? Did they try to make her implicate Jack?  
  
"Yes, they did, but we extracted her," he tells me. His eyes are tired. "But there was a problem. She was chased by the police."  
  
"The ocean driver," I realize. I watched the car go into the ocean a dozen times during the day, seeing the replays that the stations were playing over and over again. I didn't known I should have been crying, that my heart should have been bleeding.  
  
Jack nods. "She's okay; she used the tires for oxygen." I look at him and he smiles. Maybe 'smile' is too strong a word, but the corners of his mouth curve up. "I don't know how she did it either." I hear the pride in his voice, and I even hear the underlying terror that he's trying to hide. She could have died.  
  
He stares down at his shoes, and I know that the worst has yet to be told. "She knows."  
  
I start to joke that we already had this conversation. She knows that I was KGB. Then, my heart tells me what he means now. My brain denies it. It knows Jack would never tell her. Torture would not get him to tell her that I'm alive.  
  
"She told me that she realized it in the water. She thinks that your death could have been faked." His words are soft, lacking their usual confidence. "She thinks you planned it."  
  
I shake my head and hand back the papers he gave me earlier. "How does water have anything to do with my 'death'? You and I crashed on an icy road."  
  
Jack folds the papers and puts them back into his coat. "The story released to the press was that a postal employee swerved into our lane, causing us to go over a bridge. The 'official' CIA report--which someone gave her--" I can tell he's not happy that she's seen that report. "--says that you were alone and being chased by an FBI agent when you drove over a bridge."  
  
I play with the silk belt around my waist. "And Sydney thinks that I did the same thing she did today in the water? Used the tires?"  
  
"Yes, she does. Or she did." The bottom part of Jack's jaw twists from side to side, and I know he's mad at himself. "My response to her allegation was--" He sighs and shakes his head. "I told her to get in the car so I could get her to the jet. We needed to get her to Mount Subasio."  
  
I remember half-read words from the second page. Never having seen the beauty. "So that they would stop thinking the prophecy was about her."  
  
Jack nods. "She didn't say a word the entire trip, but before she got out of the car, she looked at me and told me that I would tell her everything when she got back."  
  
My lips twitch, imagining Sydney's determined expression, and Jack's surprised one. Not many people have the nerve to give him orders. "Demanding isn't she?"  
  
"She can be," Jack answers. A small smile touches his lips and then disappears. "She's tired of not knowing, of the lies, and I can't blame her. I'm tired of lying to her."  
  
"Will you bring her to see me?"  
  
"If she wants," he says. "If you want."  
  
I nod, unable to say anything past the lump in my throat. Maybe she'll hate me like Jack, but at least I'll get to see her. Hear her voice. I've spent the last fifteen years of my life being satisfied with occasional sprinting visits from my husband. Maybe I can get in at least one visit with my daughter before I disappear. If Jack will wait.  
  
"Are you going to take me in? Or are you just going to tell them about me?" Maybe I can run before they arrive. My life has been comfortable for twenty years, but I think I still have the skills to survive.  
  
Jack shakes his head. "No."  
  
"No?"  
  
"I don't think Rambaldi was talking about the US government," he admits.  
  
I think about his words. The greatest power. "What do you think I can bring down, Jack? In my great fury?" It sounds ridiculous to my ears.  
  
"Do you remember the debate we had once about which was stronger? The throne or the power behind the throne?"  
  
We are talking about the past. Jack's talking about the past without anger or coldness. "Yes, I do. You said the throne because it could build an army."  
  
Jack nods. "And you said the power behind the throne was more powerful because it had secrecy on its part. That it would be harder to fight because it hid."  
  
He looks at me, and I see the disillusionment that SD-6 has brought to those eyes. "I think you were right."  
  
I don't know how to respond. Should I be amazed? Worried? "You think there is a power behind the 'throne' of the United States?"  
  
"No. But I think there is a secret power dominating the world without anybody knowing their name."  
  
"You mean the Alliance. SD-6 and its friends." We are talking about the present. Jack has never told me about his work at SD-6. He's never told me that he's a double agent, but then he doesn't have to. I know that he would never betray his country. Never.  
  
"And you're trying to destroy them."  
  
I wish I could be surprised that he knows about my efforts. I'm not. "Yes, I am. Trying to destroy them before they destroy you and Sydney."  
  
"Getting Will Tippin killed won't help Sydney." His words are calm, his eyes are not. "You should have never picked him."  
  
"I didn't," I admit, surprising myself. Jack starts at my words, and it is then that he realizes that I'm not working alone. I can see the knowledge in his eyes. He opens his mouth to demand answers, but he closes it without saying a word. He knows that I won't give him what he wants.  
  
"Leave him alone. Sloane already knows that he's investigating SD-6. I had to warn him off," Jack tells me.  
  
"Sloane wanted him killed." I still remember the dislike that used to crawl up my spine when Arvin Sloane was in the room with me.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Damn." I sigh, remembering the praise I heard about his article. He would have been good for the job. His passion for helping others would have helped him to maintain focus when the job got tough.  
  
"Thank you for telling me," I say to him, signaling the end of our meeting like I usually do. I have emotional wounds that need bandaging.  
  
Jack hesitates a moment before moving towards the door. He stops in front of me. Like I did to him at the end of our last visit, he puts his hand on my arm. I look up at him. He leans down and kisses me. A soft kiss. Like I'm too fragile to be handled roughly. It reminds me of the Jack who said I deserved a soft bed for the first time we made love. It reminds me of the Jack who had the bed covered in rose petals for our second time. It remind me of the Jack who promised never to touch me again as I screamed from the agony of birthing our daughter.  
  
The Jack who protected and loved me.  
  
He pulls away. His eyes are warm as he looks into mine. "I know it wasn't all a lie, Laura."  
  
The marble mask slides back into place, and he's gone before I can even gasp in surprise. He called me by her name, my name. I don't know whether to be happy or sad. For the last twenty years, I knew he hated me. Now, I know he also loves me. What am I supposed to feel?  
  
Locking the door, I look over my shoulder to see the laughing faces I have envied for two decades. I suddenly feel sorry for them. I feel sorry that they can't see the vase supporting them. That their world is black and white. Black and white are fine, but I've learned with the wisdom of age that shades of color add so much to life.  
  
Then, I realize I really feel sorry for them because they are permanently stuck in joy. I used to envy that happiness. Their smiling faces never change, never cry, never frown. They've never known a moment of pain or doubt.  
  
Tonight brings a new realization. What good is permanent happiness? How could someone appreciate it? Without the valleys, the mountains are flat. Without pain, happiness is dull. Unappreciated.  
  
I hear Jack's car start, and I listen as he drives away. Maybe the next time he visits that car will also hold Sydney. My daughter may become a part of my life. May. She may get to know me. Maybe as Sydney learns about the new me, so will Jack. Maybe they will both see what I'm only starting to realize.  
  
I may be Laura Bristow's ghost, but I'm a much better person than she was. I'm stronger, more confident. I know who I am, and what I want out of life. There is no one else telling me what I'm supposed to like or hate. I've felt pain, so I can appreciate happiness.  
  
I walk towards the kitchen, turning on every light that I pass. Go away, ghosts. Go away for tonight. Because tonight, as I wait for the sun to rise, I'm going to drink my tea and think about loving a new reality instead of loving an old lie.  
  
***  
  
The End  
  
Thanks for reading! 


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